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> “I think of Quantopian as the next-generation BlackRock,” said Alex Rampell, a general partner with Andreessen Horowitz, who will be joining Quantopian’s boar

> “I think of Quantopian as the next-generation BlackRock,” said Alex Rampell, a general partner with Andreessen Horowitz, who will be joining Quantopian’s board. “They can become a very large asset manager, but hopefully in a way that no one else can replicate by aggregating and harnessing the best talent.” Hmmm..... The thing is, until you actually manage money you can't really tell if you have alpha or if you are one of the million monkeys typing out a novel on a typewriter. Are there people who aren't currently at funds who could be awesome quants? Absolutely. Just working on the markets as a full time job is a large part of succeeding. Can some of these strategies that quantopian users are coming up whit make money? Of course, alpha is everywhere. The biggest hurdle is again taking the theory and putting it into practice. And then redoing it year over year. I mean making money from 2008 until now isn't really proof of much as the market has been up and to the right almost the entire time. I don't want to sound really dismissive, but until a quantopian fund successfully manages say 200 million with returns of S&P + 5% over a period of say 5 years its probably best to cool the hype:) And I say this as someone who is a big fan of what they are doing. It's just in finance you see alot of hype and you learn very quickly, that the scoreboard is everything, nothing cuts through bullshit faster than actual returns data net of fees. I've written alot about quantopian and them turning themselves into a fund of sorts if anyone is interested. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12335272#12336086 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12335272#12336086 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12171843#12173142 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12171843#12173142 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11207569#11211122 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11207569#11211122

qwrusz 10y ago
Agree with your points. And also skeptical of the BLK comment - though for a venture capitalist joining the board, making this investment sound like it's a future $60B market cap firm is par for the course. I'm in the industry as well, and I see recruiting and training of new quants to be very inefficient and very expensive right now. I've met for coffee with PhDs in Physics with job offers already from HFs in hand and their first question to me is "what does a quant HF trader do?" What are your thoughts of Quantopian becomes used more for recruiting and training quants for other HFs than as an asset manager itself?
sweetjesus 10y ago
from 2008... as the market has been up and to the right almost the entire time Was there a time that the market did not go to the right since 2008?! Where's Dr. Strange?! something learned during the recent campaign was where Donald Trump's inherited money originally came from: the Yukon gold rush! but not from gold, it was bled from all the people chasing after the gold, most of whom lost their meager investments. This is the business model A16Z et al is pursuing here. And if gold is discovered, they'll be first on the scene.

qwrusz 10y ago

Agree with your points. And also skeptical of the BLK comment - though for a venture capitalist joining the board, making this investment sound like it's a future $60B market cap firm is par for the course. I'm in the industry as well, and I see recruiting and training of new quants to be very inefficient and very expensive right now. I've met for coffee with PhDs in Physics with job offers already from HFs in hand and their first question to me is "what does a quant HF trader do?" What are your thoughts of Quantopian becomes used more for recruiting and training quants for other HFs than as an asset manager itself?

sweetjesus 10y ago

from 2008... as the market has been up and to the right almost the entire time Was there a time that the market did not go to the right since 2008?! Where's Dr. Strange?! something learned during the recent campaign was where Donald Trump's inherited money originally came from: the Yukon gold rush! but not from gold, it was bled from all the people chasing after the gold, most of whom lost their meager investments. This is the business model A16Z et al is pursuing here. And if gold is discovered, they'll be first on the scene.